Hey there family! (letter 1/24/11)

Hi,

How is everything going at home? I hope that things are going well. :) Things here are going really well. We are nearing the end of another Pday. It´s been kind of an exhausting one. We played alot of sports today. We started out by going to send in the numbers to the mission and then we left and went to play soccer for a couple of hours. Then we walked to the chapel here and in the basketball court outside we played dodge ball for a solid hour or so. The sun and all of the sports kind of tired us all out. But, it was energy well spent. I´ll be ready for some appointments tonight and then go home and sleep and then wake up tomorrow morning with all of the energy for the week. We also ate pizza and just got some ice cream. All in all a good Pday. I´m happy about how it has gone.

Dodge ball was really fun. A bunch of the missionaries had never played. The balls were a little hard, they were handballs... but they were the best thing that we could come up with to play with, no dodge balls around here...

We had a baptism this last week. The sister of the couple we baptized a little while back. If was a really cool baptism. We went around a couple of days beforehand inviting all of the family of hers that lives in our area, trying to get them to come to the baptism. About 15 of them actually came, including her Dad, who before then hadn´t ever set foot in the church. So now we are working with all of those people and we should start to see a lot more support from the family there. That will help out alot. We should also be having a bunch of baptisms on the 5th of February. Seeing that that is the last Saturday before transfers, it would be a nice way to end my time here, if I do happen to get transferred. It is still pretty likely that I will stay here for another transfer. But just in case.... :)
(I couldn´t send photos today, I will next week, sorry!!!)

Another fun note about the baptism, I got to play the piano again! I played while my companion sang Come Unto Jesus. It was actually really cool. We kind of made up our own arrangement beforehand, and it came out really well. I just get really nervous before I play. A bunch of the members started asking me afterwards why I didn´t play for the regular church meetings. The problem is that I don´t know enough of the hymns, and never will have enough time to practice them all. So, I don´t plan on trying again anytime soon. Though for our baptism on the fifth, I may play again as the missionaries sing. That would be cool. Maybe I should never have given up the piano.... :) Yes Mom, you were right.

What can I say. It was a good week. We are working really hard. The zone is doing really well still. We are seeing a bunch more baptisms than before. And a whole lot more investigators that are going to the Sunday meetings. Our bishop is also starting to get more excited about the work. He is starting to call more of the members to callings and assignments to really get things rolling in the ward. It´s kind of exciting. The ward is really fellowshipping (took me forever to think of that word) the new converts and that is really cool to see. The young women's president was already taking our new convert around to visit some of the other girls the night of her baptism. It´s just nice to see things start to progress. I think this week is interviews with President del Castillo, but I´m not sure.

The Church is true. God is always there to help us, especially in times when we feel most alone. It´s been interesting to see these last few weeks how He really does work in every aspect of peoples lives. Whether it´s preparing people to receive the missionaries, or sending us by a house at the moment someone needed a blessing, and many other things. It´s been really cool to see the Spirit start working a whole bunch more in the houses of people and even the members of the ward here. And, well not much other exciting things happened this week... maybe next week....
I gotta run, I love and miss you all,
con mucho amor,
- Matthew